Matthew Bennardo

There is a machine that, given a sample of your blood, will return a piece of paper with a word, or a few words, printed on it, telling you what you're going to die of. Not when. Not where. Only how. The predictions are often ambiguous or even downright cryptic. Sometimes they're self-fulfilling. But they're always, always right.

Each of the short stories in this collection takes that as its central premise, and takes off from there to explore the idea's social, personal or philosophical show more implications... or simply to have fun with it. Individually, I don't think any of these pieces is especially brilliant. Probably very few of them would stand on their own particularly well outside this anthology. But the premise is so morbidly wonderful, and the way the various authors explore it from different angles so fascinating, that I found the book as a whole completely compelling, in a nifty more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts kind of way. show less

This is the second anthology of stories (and some cartoons) featuring the Machine of Death. (The first, imaginatively enough, was called Machine of Death.) What is the Machine of Death? It's a mysterious device that, when provided with a blood sample, will tell you how you die. It's short on details, and its answers are sometimes ambiguous, cryptic, or downright misleading, but they're never, ever wrong. No matter what you do.

A lot of the stories in this one expand the original idea in new show more directions. Some put versions of the death machine into different historical periods, the far future, or alternate fantasy worlds. Others toy a bit with the question of how the machine works in the first place. There are several that deal with the idea of fake machines and quite a few that take the idea that a person's death prediction never changes and enjoy trying to find a loophole in it, while others continue to explore the questions of how individuals and societies respond to such a thing.

And my feeling about this volume is much the same as with the first one. Individually, most of these stories aren't necessarily incredibly well-written or interesting (although there some very good exceptions). But a whole kaleidoscope of different explorations and interpretations of this idea is truly compelling, more than enough so to keep me engaged through two fairly thick books. show less

After seeing teasers for this book on David Malki!'s web comic for quite a while, I finally picked up a copy when the "disposable" paperback edition came out (cheaper binding and less color, I guess). How can you not be intrigued by the premise of a machine that will tell you exactly how you will die, but like all prophesies, tell you in a not terribly helpful way, and what that world would be like is an interesting one? How can you not be entertained by the whole back story of the book show more itself? A throw-away gag in a web comic becomes a self-sustaining idea with stories and perfmances; self-published because no publisher would touch it; pissing Glenn Beck off by beating out his own book on Amazon; free digital edition; a sequel. But I was always a little leery of a bunch of authors I mostly knew nothing about.

So when I finally broke down and bought it, I was very pleasantly surprised. Like any short story collection, it has some strong stories and some weak ones, but on the whole I'd say more strong than weak. My biggest fear was that 34 stories on the same topic would get too repetitive. Given the premise that the machine is (1) always right and (2) the answer never changes, the stories inevitably have some aspect of fatalism and predestination about them. But they are less about fate than just about people with one fixed, and yet totally ambiguous aspect of their life. And each individual story is still quite unique. The collection is also well organized, leading off with one of the strongest stories, and varying the approach and style so that you don't get burned out reading similar variations in a row.

Two of my favorites are "Flaming Marshmallow" handling the teen angst aspect perfectly, and "Almond" told from the perspective of a keeper/operator of a Machine of Death, which becomes almost a collection of mini-stories itself.

So give it a try, don't be afraid of the self-publishing stigma. If you have friends who still don't how Alanis Morrisette got "ironic" completely wrong, give them a copy of this book. Best of all, depending on where you buy it from, it may come with your own death card included. I, apparently, am going to die of "Tigers". show less

As the title indicates, this collection of stories is set in a world where everyone has the ability to discover how he or she is going to die. A Machine of Death has been invented whose mysterious power causes it to determine anyone’s cause of death from a simple finger prick. The trouble is, the machine’s results are rarely unambiguous: “old age” could mean dying at age 90, or it could mean being shot by an old guy. In these 34 stories (each with an accompanying illustration), the show more characters deal with this new reality in many different ways. Some people are unable to enjoy life now that their new knowledge haunts them. Others are exhilarated by a sense of newfound freedom: why not go skydiving if you know you will die from cancer? The stories in this book all explore the effect that a machine of death might have on our society.

When I first heard about this book, I was immediately intrigued by its central concept, and I was curious to see the creatively bizarre ways in which the characters would meet their demises. Overall, I think the collection does a great job of exploring many different ramifications of the death machine’s existence. In some stories (like “Fudge,” one of my favorites), the main character is horrified by the knowledge, while in others (“Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions”) he is overjoyed. Some stories treat the death machine as a huge cultural trend whose main effect is to establish a new caste system. I was impressed by the creativity and variety of the stories. On the other hand, reading 34 stories in a row about death gets kind of bleak! I was surprised by how little humor appears in the collection overall; it’s definitely there, but I thought more of the stories would be funny. I also would have liked to see a few stories where the machine was wrong, but every story in this collection treats it as infallible. Ultimately I think this is a well-written collection with a really neat gimmick, but I feel no need to re-read it. show less